Building a community in space would be an opportunity to learn more about space and discover what new heights our technology can reach. However, a community in space could also provide an advance warning system for asteroids travelling close to earth. In the past, comets have hit Earth and caused extreme damage. The ending of different eras of life has been blamed on large comets hitting the Earth. Even today, comets enter into Earth's atmosphere that are large An illustration of what a meteor impact may look like [Courtesy of NASA] enough to cause a lot of damage. Not only do people have a reason to fear a comet hitting their world, but asteroids, large or small, could destroy the thousands of satellites that orbit the Earth. The loss of or damage of any satellite could cripple large companies and disrupt daily life on Earth. Because of the many damaging possibilities, scientists have come up with proposals to help safeguard earth from another natural disaster. One proposal is to set up a "detection and discrimination" process that would, theoretically, keep Earth warned of An asteroid [Courtesy of NASA] asteroids coming close into Earth. The way it works is that a telescope detects an asteroid. Then, the information is sent to a computer where it is determined whether or not action to be taken to interfere with the asteroids orbital path. The next step is more complicated. The military is supposed to protect the Earth from different threats, natural or not. As such, scientists feel that the military should support efforts to help protect from comets. This is a very new idea, and therefore there are still many new paths to explore. The comets would ultimately be intercepted and destroyed. Scientists hope that military cooperation would lead to the ability to use technologies already in use to destroy comets.